Citizen columns help explore key issues

I congratulate the Record for featuring the "My Turn" to afford serious dialogue on our region's issues. I suggested to the Record on June 2 that this better serves readers.

The discussion pieces about school taxes (Aug. 7, 11 and 18) have been informative. Those advocating House Bill/Senate Bill 76 deserve comment.

George K. Strunk, who has other problems, wrote Aug. 18 about the teachers' union using biased vocabulary: "intimidate," "shake down," "plush contracts." Talleyrand said "anything exaggerated is trivialized." Mr. Strunk's bile weakens his argument.

His column also fails in logic, stating in one place that taxpayers should not trust "any local school board any more than they trust any other group of politicians," then surrendering local control to "professionals" in Harrisburg. Last I looked, they were professional politicians, the kind he said we shouldn't trust.

Gary E. Smith, of the Monroe and Pike Taxpayers Association, is overly optimistic about HB/SB 76, stating in his Aug. 18 column, this new tax "would be sufficient to fund dollar-for-dollar all of our public schools." He doesn't recognize that sales tax revenues rise and fall, so that our children's education would need to be cut each time sales dip. Advance planning would also be imperiled. Such probabilities run against the requirement for an "efficient" public school system in the Commonwealth's constitution (Article 2, Sec. 14).

Moreover, among our biggest revenue producers are the Crossroads Mall stores. People come from other states because there is no Pennsylvania tax on clothing. These visitors eat, stay overnight, buy gas, etc. Raising the sales tax would erode this county's revenue base, meaning that HB/SB 76 leads to other — and higher — taxes.

Death and taxes are inevitable, but a salute to My Turn for seeking a better way.